As a parent, you probably work pretty hard to make healthy food choices for your children. But do you make healthy toy choices too?

It’s especially important to make healthy toy choices if you have a child who suffers from asthma or allergies – but limiting exposure to chemicals is actually a good idea for all children. While any single exposure is unlikely to have an impact (except on the most sensitive people) all of those individual exposures (from breathing what is off-gassed into the air and what is put directly into their mouth) adds up over days, weeks, and years and combine with all the other things that your children are exposed to in their daily lives creating a chemical burden on their developing bodies and brains.

Even with regulations in place, it isn’t uncommon to find harmful chemicals in toys and other products designed specifically for children.

Here’s a list of chemicals that may be found in toys:

• Phthalates (makes plastics soft)
• BPA (bisphenol A, in shiny hard plastics)
• PVC (Polyvinyl chloride)
• Lead
• Cadmium
• Chlorine
• Formaldehyde
• Arsenic

And this is just to name a few! Most of the chemicals used have not been tested for toxicity to babies and small children, who have a limited ability to detoxify and their biological systems are still developing.

If you want healthier toys and make less-toxic choices, opt for toys that are made of:

• Unfinished, solid, non-toxic wood
• All-natural, untreated fibres (like cotton) with non-toxic dyes.

Also be sure to skip hard and soft plastic, items with coatings or paint, synthetic, stain-resistant, and flame retardant fabrics, fragrances, and anything else you can’t pronounce. Read about Dr. Adriana Hayward’s journey towards a healthy home here, where she talks about the troubling experience she and her family had when their home was in the worst condition. Watch Dr. Hayward’s video here.

To learn more about additional conditions in your home that may be impacting your health, take the Hayward Score survey today! Get suggestions on how to make your home healthier, as well as detailed, personalized Action Plans to get you started. Getting to a healthy home can seem daunting, but it is possible and our experts are here to help! You can Ask an Expert, and one of our Hayward Score team members will contact you within 2 working days to schedule your call.